Handoff rules
Decide when a conversation should leave the bot and reach a human — four deterministic rule types plus an optional AI-driven fallback.
Handoff moves a conversation from the agent to a human. When it fires, the bot stops replying, the conversation is flagged for a person, and it surfaces in your inbox so you can take over. Configure it under Settings → Hand off to human.
There are two ways a handoff can trigger: your rules, and the agent's own judgment.
Rule types
You can enable any combination of four rule types. Each is checked on every visitor message, before the AI runs.
Phrase match
Hand off when the visitor's message contains any phrase from your list (matched
case-insensitively, anywhere in the message). Add phrases as chips — for example
speak to a human, talk to someone, refund. You can add up to 50 phrases.
Topic match
Hand off when the message touches a sensitive topic. You choose from curated topics:
- Refund / return
- Complaint
- Legal
- Safety / harm
Each topic matches a maintained set of keywords, so you don't have to list them yourself.
Repeated question
Hand off when the visitor asks essentially the same question too many times — a sign the agent is stuck. Set the threshold (from 2 up to 50 occurrences).
Turn count
Hand off once the visitor has sent a certain number of messages (from 2 up to 200) — useful for escalating long conversations to a person.
Which rule wins
If more than one rule matches the same message, the first match in this order decides:
- Phrase match
- Topic match
- Repeated question
- Turn count
Let the agent hand off on its own
Under Advanced, the toggle "Also let the agent hand off on its own" keeps
an escalate tool available to the AI as a safety net for situations your rules
don't cover — an upset visitor, a request it clearly can't handle. Turn it off to
make handoff fully deterministic: only your four rules can trigger it.
Handoff is intentionally rule-first. Deterministic rules are predictable and easy to reason about; the optional AI fallback catches the long tail. When a handoff fires, the visitor sees a "connecting you to a team member" state, and you reply from the inbox.